


Withdrawal

by mehenisms



Series: Queen of Hearts [4]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: CW: drug abuse mentions; withdrawal; etc, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, I will singlehandedly populate this ship tag, i guess??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:35:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22600327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mehenisms/pseuds/mehenisms
Summary: Tossing this short little old thing out here while I hopefully finish up the next chapter of the main story, TSNL - sorry for the wait guys! Things have been kinda wild for me lately.For the record - I have experience with psychiatry meds and exotic illnesses, lol. This is based very loosely on personal experiences.See you again soon!
Relationships: Ikora Rey/Petra Venj
Series: Queen of Hearts [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604797
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Withdrawal

Watching her shake and fumble with the lid of a small orange bottle only to find it empty and throw it across the room in a fit of unmedicated anger nearly broke Petra’s heart.

Ikora didn’t always take her medicine, but with Petra’s prompting, she took it often enough to keep herself as stable as someone in her position could be. Whenever she ran out, she sometimes resorted to more...unconventional methods of self-medicating, most of which were overtly harmful. Since she caught her with hard drugs the first time, Petra had taken it on herself to make sure Ikora didn’t run out of her meds anymore.

At first, she tried to get her to utilize Awoken healing methods to try to calm her mind, and to Ikora’s credit, she tried it - but she quickly decided, very aggressively, that she didn’t take kindly to the Techeuns poking around in her head to find the source of her illnesses, so Petra decided maybe more traditional medicine was just what worked for her (although with the seemingly spotty results, she wouldn’t know).

Earth-grade antipsychotics and telepathic suppressants were not exactly the easiest drugs to come by on the Tangled Shore...and it’s not like Ikora - the Queen of Hearts, rather - could just waltz into the Tower and ask for a refill. She was an exile now, after all; a stranger to her own people. Petra knew for a fact that most of the City thought her to be dead - and in a way, she supposed, they’re right. It’s a bit sad, really; she's just glad that she doesn’t have to suffer at the hands of those thoughts herself. Ikora is alive. Not always well, but she lives, and Petra was going to make sure she stayed that way.

As soon as she saw Petra, Ikora froze like a frightened animal seeing a hunter aiming down sights. Petra, ever the diplomat, held her hands up innocently, one pill bottle to be seen in each. Ikora's face lit up with hope, but she dashed it as soon as she realized it and visibly forced herself to return to neutrality. Petra had seen it, though, and watched her shoulders slump in relief, so not all was lost and she may have prevented a worse episode.

_Nice save, Venj. Just in time._

With slow movements, Petra lowered her arms back to her sides and crossed the large center chamber of the Ketch ruins Ikora called home, heading towards where she knew her safe space to be: A room off to the side, at the end of several winding hallways and a few locked hatch doors. Petra could feel her following her as the sensation of her Light edged closer and closer, like sandpaper on her skin. It didn’t hurt so much anymore; now, her presence was more soothing than painful, even if it still caused a little discomfort now and then.

Petra knew all her passcodes - Ikora had even programmed in some just for her use, so she would know when she was coming (her attention to detail even in her psychotic state astounded Petra regularly when she took time to ponder it: Somehow, Ikora had created a wireless signal that bounced between her Ghost, her personal transponder, and the Ketch mechanisms to alert her to intrusions). After entering her room, Petra briefly looked around to gauge her longer-term state of mind. She kept her personal quarters a certain way, and deviations from that were quite telling.

She had her hammock strung up high in the corner of the room near the ceiling, seemingly inaccessible (but Petra knew she had her ways, of course, and that she utilized them when she felt unsafe sleeping on the ground). Some of her belongings were out of place: Her necklace was flung sloppily on the floor near the small table she kept by her real bed, weapons laid askew across the room instead of on their designated racks against the walls, and trophies of past battles were hanging halfway off the wall with gouges in the metal near them, as though slashed at by sharp claws or very fine blades. Some sat on the floor beneath where they had hung before, seemingly abandoned. She also had...was that a dead servitor, blinking by her personal workbench? Was it hooked up to some kind of machine—a distillery, maybe? That was new. Petra had only been gone a couple of earth-days.

With a deep breath, Petra picked a chair up off the ground from where it laid overturned on its side and sat down at the bedside to wait. A moment later, Ikora crept into the room like a panther stalking prey, but relaxed her tense muscles when the hatch closed behind her. Instead of looking fierce as she typically did, within this room, she tended to simply look tired. She certainly did now; Petra didn’t need to see her face beneath that hood to know.

Ikora slowly moved towards Petra, and when she gently patted the bed Ikora crawled onto it and sat down rather unceremoniously, hunched over, with her head hung. She wouldn’t look up as she shook ever so slightly. Petra felt a pang of regret in her chest: On one hand, she wished she could have stayed with her to make this easier, and on the other, she wished she’d left a day or so earlier so she could have been back before things got this bad.

Ikora reached out a hand towards her like a child silently asking for a toy or comfort object, and while she yearned to take her hand, lean close, and gently kiss her forehead, or hold her close to her chest and make her feel safe in her arms, she knew that wasn’t what Ikora needed in that moment.

Without hesitance, Petra handed her one bottle at a time, taking the lids off in advance. Ravenously, Ikora dug the proper dosage out of each and popped the pill concoction into her mouth like candy, dry-swallowing them in one relieved gulp. When she finished, she handed each bottle back to her seated partner sheepishly, as though embarrassed, and after replacing their lids Petra leaned to set them down on the bedside table, bent to pick her necklace up and set it next to the medicine, and then returned her eyes to that exhausted, downtrodden face.

Ikora wiggled to inch closer to Petra, seeking attention, and she happily obliged by taking Ikora’s hands and leaning in to push back her hood and messy curls before gently pressing her lips to her forehead, just like she’d wanted. When she drew back to look at her again, Petra saw love in those amber eyes, edged with a silent apology as Ikora pulled one hand away to make a fist at her chest and move it in a circular motion. This beautiful woman would apologize for everything when she had done nothing, and despite Petra’s instinctual urge to tell her she had done nothing wrong, she knew she wouldn’t believe it, so instead she simply squeezed her hand and gave her a soft smile while trying not to wear a look of pity. She brought her hand back to Petra’s and squeezed them in kind - she’d be okay.

Petra let go of the breath she’d been holding for days.

**Author's Note:**

> Tossing this short little old thing out here while I hopefully finish up the next chapter of the main story, TSNL - sorry for the wait guys! Things have been kinda wild for me lately.
> 
> For the record - I have experience with psychiatry meds and exotic illnesses, lol. This is based very loosely on personal experiences.
> 
> See you again soon!


End file.
